Religion: a Contest.

Actually, no: genuine faith or spirituality (Christianity and, for that matter, Islam or Buddhism) is about walking our respective paths of devotion; of learning to be kind and generous to ourselves and others; of becoming closer to God or the present moment; of fulfilling the responsibility that is the gift of this precious, fragile, remarkable life.

Whoever put that sign up musta felt reallllly silly, or stupid. If they didn’t feel silly or stupid, then they probably were silly or…well, missing the point just a bit.

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1092587 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.elephantjournal.com%2F2010%2F12%2Fdoes-your-religion-have-an-insecurity-complex%2FDoes+your+Religion+have+an+Insecurity+Complex%3F+2010-12-23+23%3A15%3A43elephant+journalhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.elephantjournal.com%2F%3Fp%3D109258 to “Does your Religion have an Insecurity Complex?”

I've met many truly open-minded religious people who choose to educate themselves in other faiths, religions, spirituality paths. I've often found, most of the people I've talked to like this, stayed with their religion. Often my response is to tell them: What if you imagined that you were born a new baby to a family with that religion, the mother and father you trust raised you in that religion or spiritual path. You would obviously trust your parents, and your mind wouldn't just be open to it, your heart, your soul would be open to it… and only then would you really get to know the other path truly… did you ever really go that far into looking into the other faith… often the response I get is a mumbled "no".

I was very fortunate to have been raised in a heavily Christian family who felt everything else was the wrong belief and everyone else will go to hell. I was in a Muslim even more fanatical country till I was ten. Then I came to the USA, and I had questions… I researched and by the time I was 20 I was most fortunate to meet a good Indian man who I spent years learned from the ways of the Eastern spiritual paths. At first, to my Christian mind he was much like the "anti-christ"… but a fire burned inside me to know what is really true. He once told me about the story of one spiritual master from India named Ramakrishna Paramhansa who left his beloved Goddess for sometime and entered a number of other paths including Christianity and Islam. By that inspiration, in faith, I prayed to Jesus and told him if there is any truth to Jesus, then he wouldn't mind that I explored more deeply spirituality and discovered the truth. Of course, the Truth can't be limited to a single religion… to single name, etc. It seemed so obvious to me and it feels so strange to live in a world that people can be so fanatical about their religions and so ignorant about anything else. I spent years going deep into Hindusim, and was fortunate to have real trans-formative deep spiritual experiences. Later I got into Buddhism, and same experiences followed. Then it was Shamanism, with very deep spiritual trans-formative experiences again. Then Sufism, Zen, and it just continued until I found my own way, I found my own authentic religion, my own individual culture, I became myself… beyond any of these words, ideas, and so on… and I saw there is truth in all of them, there is beauty in all of them…. and as a lover of truth, each of them has given new depth, each of them has built on the others without having to compare them.

Ramiel: I'm so glad you were able to find your way out of a fear-based spirituality. I am a follower of Jesus and I, too, *love* Ramakrishna, who said, "There is only one Rama, but he has a thousand names."

personally i cringe at world ''religion''. i believe, i have faith…i be;lieve the WORD wis divine and has been spoken by many who recognize their own divine connections and help us all to see-jesus, muhammed, buddha…truth, love, light, energy,-the spark of the divine is very alive. religion is like a corrall or harness and bridle-or perhaps even more like the blinders put on a horse to keep on narrow. limited track. ''my religion does not believe in such and such is how people shut out others and close selves off from discovering further, richer revelations. iI do not consider myself part of A religion. i am alive, my faith lives and my beliefs grow and evolve peace, salaam, shalom, namastë

There is only one person in charge of your universe. Some rationalizations offer, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed as an excuse for being irresponsible. They say that God is really in charge, not "little old helpless me". You will have little difficulty with this. If God is in charge of the universe. He or She has certainly placed you as a working superintendent of the you-centered universe with which you deal and is not likely to excuse you from your job. Have fun!

I appreciate that you allow for the possibility that we are co-creators with God. As for me, I choose to not have my uniiverse be me-centered, but other-centered instead. And yes, while it often involves some pain and heart-ache it is fun.
Peace.

[…] happening. By turning every negative into a positive, and knowing that there is no reason to feel insecure (everything inside of me is pure and beautiful, as my guru had told me), I was able to push my […]